


Fundamental Best Practices in the Classroom

by theboysgonehome



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Middle School, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 18:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13324365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theboysgonehome/pseuds/theboysgonehome
Summary: The Gang are all teachers in a public middle school. Spencer Reid is the newest addition to the staff. Derek Morgan is the worst.





	1. Chapter 1

At year seven, Derek Morgan was starting to feel like he was getting the hang of this whole “teaching” thing. Then again, he’d felt that way every September since year three and the feeling always slipped away by October. This was his year, though. He could feel it in his bones as he pulled into the parking lot for the first day of professional development. 

He was on top of his shit this school year. He’d been coming in for a week to get his classroom set up so he wouldn’t have to struggle with it at the last minute. He’d been retooling his lesson plans all summer between afternoons by the pool, professional conferences, and evenings out clubbing. God, summer was the best. 

Sitting in his truck, Derek Morgan sighed a little as he looked at the middle school building. His coworkers were making their way inside for the yearly welcome back meeting. He missed summer already. Still, he shook himself out of his pessimism. He was going to kick ass as a teacher this year. He and Jesus, they’d been talking, and Derek promised to do better this year. 

“Hey!” Someone knocked on Derek’s window and he jumped about three feet into the air. It was Ashley Seaver, a particularly irritating coworker. Derek closed his eyes.  _Jesus, why you testing me already?_  

Derek opened the door, smiling at his coworker. “Hey. How was your summer?” 

“Too short,” she said, laughing like her joke wasn't the first thing every teacher said when asked that question. Derek hauled his computer bag out of the passenger seat and pulled a large travel mug from the center console. He’d sent the technology teacher a text this morning about spiking it with something stronger only to get her sarcastic reply: 

 _The school year hasn’t even started yet, love muffin. I thought you were right with Jesus this year?_  

Speak of the devil. There she was, Penelope Garcia, technology teacher, standing at the door waving at him, looking like a vision in a pencil skirt. Derek waved at her and quickened his step, leaving Ashley to catch up as they all entered the building. 

“I swear,” Derek said to Penelope out of the side of his mouth. “If you don’t sit next to me at this bullshit welcome back meeting I will murder someone, and it might be Ashley.” 

Penelope patted his arm. “I’ve got you.” 

The welcome back meeting was the worst. First morning of professional development meant the staff all squeezed into the media center with nothing but an oddly stale continental breakfast to placate them while they were given what were supposed to be inspirational speeches about the year ahead.  

Penelope took Derek's elbow as the media center loomed near, speaking low. “Have you met any of the new staff yet?” 

Derek shook his head. “Not yet, no. I know we needed a math teacher for the seventh grade and a gym teacher.” 

“And science for eighth grade.” 

“What? Who left?” 

When Penelope told him that Callahan had left for another school over the summer, Derek snorted. Callahan had never really excelled with middle schoolers to begin with, so he wasn’t shocked.  

This was what happened in their school district. They were right on the edge of the city, technically in a suburb but not a particularly nice one. Their school was also a school of choice, so the majority of their students lived in the city and were dropped off by their parents. They had all the behavioral problems of the public school district in the city, but fewer resources because of their size. Their teacher turnover was less than what it was in the charter schools, but they were always losing a few coworkers to the wealthier (and whiter) suburbs a few more miles away from the city. 

“Who have you met?” Derek asked Penelope. 

“The math teacher, she came from my old charter.”  

“Blessings upon her for escaping that hell hole.” 

Derek and Penelope swaggered into the middle school media center in tandem. They greeted co-workers without stopping while making a direct line for the table in the front corner (half hidden behind the check-out desk but with easy access to electrical outlets) that they always claimed during the weekly staff meetings. 

Unlike the other schools in their district, at least this meeting would be semi-useful. Derek's friends from other buildings had described the kumbaya bullshit their administrators tried to pull on the first day back, and honestly, it made Derek gag just thinking about it. At least at this meeting they’d meet the new staff members, maybe go over some policy changes in the student code of conduct. Things that would actually affect their jobs.  

Principal Hotchner was many things, but prone to time wasting he was not, thank god. Within three minutes, he was asking the staff of forty to welcome their newest additions. 

Derek and Penelope craned their necks around the room to spot the newbies. Derek had a sense for new people. It took a special breed to work at this school – you had to be resilient and creative, had to want to build relationships, and had to have patience. You had to be able to teach without a textbook, skip your prep hour to substitute in someone else’s classroom, fix the broken copier by thumping it just right, reply to the highly inappropriate group text, deescalate a near fight in your classroom, and deal with the inevitable bullshit from central office, all before lunch. 

Survival here really didn’t have much to do with being a good teacher, although you certainly wouldn’t make it if you were a bad one. The kids would run you out before Thanksgiving. But even good teachers sometimes struggled here. Their kids had unstable home lives, came to them with gaps in their knowledge from moving to new schools so often, had issues with impulse control and self-regulation that went way beyond the norm for hormonal middle school kids. A good teacher wouldn’t survive if they weren’t also a counselor, a mentor, a surrogate parent, and a negotiator.  

So Derek had a sense about these things. He could size up a new teacher in a matter of moments and predict how long they would last. On rare occasions, he would meet a teacher that he knew could be in it for the long haul. Most of the time he was either predicting that they would be out by the start of the next school year, like the old science teacher, or sooner. 

One of the newbies was standing at the back of the room. He was a total nerd – browline glasses, sweater vest, the whole nine yards. He gave an awkward wave before he spoke. 

“I’m Dr. Spencer Reid, and I’ve been recruited through Teach for America to teach eighth grade science.” 

This guy might not even make it to Halloween. 

*** 

Derek’s classroom was across the hall from the new science teacher. They were dead center in the eighth-grade hallway, up on the second floor, where the heat rose without air conditioning and a classroom full of sweaty middle schoolers got funky fast. Derek had considered investing in Febreeze at this point. At least it wasn't the first floor, though, where the eighth-grade teachers were all a stone’s throw from the main office, where the office manager, Ms. Greenaway, could glare them all into silence for having too much fun. 

Yeah, the second floor was way better. 

The second floor eighth grade hallway was also sort of the party hallway. The staff there knew how to make the school day fun. Starting down by the staircase, there was the computer lab where Penelope taught technology and the room where JJ, a young blonde thing called  _Ms._ _J_ _areau_  by her often moon-eyed students, taught English. There was Emily, who taught world languages and Gideon, a special education teacher who spent more time bitching about paperwork than anyone Derek had ever met. Last year, the awful science teacher had been across the hall from Derek, and he spent so much time closing his door to drown out the sounds of her screaming at kids. So much time. 

At least the new guy didn't look like he'd yell much. Then again, people can surprise themselves when some thirteen-year-old little asshole is pushing their buttons. 

They were in meetings all day and would be for almost the entire week. And next week... students. Derek was glad he'd been coming in already to set up his classroom, but he still found himself staying in the building after the meetings had ended to work a little in his room. Football season started nearly right away, and as the coach for the middle school team, there was a lot Derek needed to prepare. 

He looked up from his desk at one point to see the new kid standing in the doorway of his classroom, frozen. Derek sighed, saved his spreadsheet, and went into the hallway. 

"How's it going?" He asked. 

The new kid jumped and spun to face him. "Oh, uh, hi. Yeah, it's fine. This is fine." 

Derek did his level best not to laugh. "My name is Derek. Mr. Morgan or Coach Morgan to the kids. I teach social studies." 

"It's nice to meet you," the kid said. "Spencer Reid." 

"Yeah, science, I remember. We've never had someone from Teach for America before. At least, not in the seven years I've been here." 

"It's a very exciting program." Spencer Reid was still staring into the empty classroom as he talked. "I went to a recruitment seminar after I learned they'd pay for my second PhD, but I've always been intrigued by the idea of teaching. I must say, I was hoping for a high school placement, what with my specialty being chemistry, but I'm sure this will work out, too." 

Wow. "Second PhD? You look like you're--" 

The kid rolled his eyes, tone taking on that of someone who was very used to this conversation. "Yes, I'm young. Twenty-one, turning twenty-two in October. Yes, I have a PhD in chemistry, but I'd also like to pursue one in Mathematics and maybe engineering, and no, that doesn't make me an overachiever. Yes, I am some kind of genius or something." 

Now Derek did laugh. "Ok kid, got it. Glad to have you here. If you need anything, let me know." 

Spencer's shoulders relaxed a little. "Well, now that you mention it, there does seem to be a glaring hole in the training provided this summer by my Teach for America program." 

"What's that?" 

Spencer gestured into the classroom. There were thirty desks in stacks of two pushed against one wall, an ancient metal teacher's desk, two blank bulletin boards, one long white board, and two empty book shelves. The walls were painted the standard institutional khaki and the floor was speckled tiles that had seen better days. The only nice thing in the classroom was the interactive smartboard installed on one wall. It was state of the art and one had been installed in all the middle school classrooms over the summer thanks to a grant he, Penelope, Emily, and Kevin in the IT department had slaved over last winter. 

Spencer was looking around the blank slate of the classroom, hopelessly lost. "Where do you even start?" 

*** 

By the end of their week of professional development, Derek was eager to meet his kids. It always went like that. The first day of PDs had him begging for summer to return, but after a week cooped up with adults learning about a bunch of district-mandated bullshit, he was so ready to get back to the business of teaching. 

He'd given the new kid a tour of the things the administrators never tell new teachers, like how to operate the copy machines and where to hang out on lunch, since the teacher's lounge was a total snake pit of all the most pessimistic professionals in the building. He'd also given him some stuff from the back of his storage closet, like extra border for the bulletin boards. He'd shown him how to properly fill out a supply request form so Greenaway wouldn't put an angry post-it note on it and return it to his mailbox to be "fixed" before she'd fill it.  

It was for that reason that Derek was currently helping Spencer haul his supplies up from the office. The other drawback of the second-floor classroom: the elevator was tiny and ancient and Derek lived in fear of the day it would break down with him inside of it. They had laden down a hand cart with the boxes of supplies Greenaway had carefully stacked for Spencer and they were standing behind it on the elevator. 

Seriously, an elevator shouldn't take more than a full minute to transverse a single story.  

About thirty seconds into the ride, the elevator shuddered and lurched. Spencer and Derek shared a wide eyed look. Spencer reached over to jab at the second floor button repeatedly. The elevator shook again. 

"Not today, Satan," Derek mumbled, trying to will the elevator to move. 

"Help!" Spencer shouted. 

The elevator groaned in response. 

"Boy, calm down," Derek said, alarm sharpening his tone as well. 

"I am calm!" Spencer panicked. 

The elevator shuddered to a stop. The doors eased open. Somehow, against all odds, they had made it to the second floor. They spilled out into the hallway, momentarily forgetting the hand cart, until Spencer threw a hand out to prevent the doors from closing on his supplies. He steered the cart out of the cramped space without actually stepping foot back into the elevator.  

They hauled the goods into Spencer's classroom and Derek took a look around. He hadn't been back in here properly since that first day, too busy with everything else that needed getting ready before the school year began. It looked like a completely different room. 

The big bulletin board at the back of the room was covered by a three dimensional tree, its trunk made of twisted up brown butcher paper, the leaves cut from construction paper in all the classic fall colors. Cut from vibrant blue paper were the words "Welcome to science with Dr. Reid!" 

"Wow," Derek said. "Very Pinterest." 

"The art teacher, Ms. Seaver, helped me out a little. What's Pinterest?" 

"Ask Penelope," Derek said, taking in the rest of the room. The bookshelves were full of reference books and textbooks. The other bulletin board was set up as the district-required data wall. The whiteboard had a calendar on it made out of paper tape. There were posters on the walls and a polka dot pendant hanging above the smartboard that just said "science!" 

"Penelope Garcia, the technology teacher?" 

"That's the one." 

"She showed me Teachers Pay Teachers. That seems like a very helpful website." 

Derek laughed and nodded. "It really is. I'm glad we teach in the age of the internet. Seriously, though, you did good. This classroom looks great." 

"Thanks." The kid's cheeks went a little pink and for the first time Derek noticed how  _cute_  this guy was. 

Goddamn it. This was not what Derek needed.  _He was going to do better this year._ He patted the stack of supplies on the cart. "Where are these going?" 

Spencer unlocked his storage cabinet and they began loading stuff inside. He'd had to request everything, as the old science teacher had left nothing behind, so they were loading in everything from colored pencils to a stapler for his desk. 

"One hundred and fifty notebooks?" Derek asked as they stacked the third box of composition notebooks into the cabinet. 

"My seminar instructor at Teach for America recommended interactive notebooks for placements where we're working without textbooks and Ms. Garcia helped me find a lot of resources for them." 

"Oh, yeah, I know about those." Derek had tried it last year. Disaster. "I recommend you request more glue sticks now." 

Spencer nodded. "Noted. You've really been so helpful in getting everything ready." 

"No problem," Derek shrugged. "Your first year is the hardest." 

Spencer took a deep breath. 

"You feel ready for Monday?" Derek smirked. 

"Not in the slightest." 

Derek clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Trust me. You never do." 

*** 

God, the first two weeks of school were amazing. The honeymoon period in which only the absolute worst behaved kids acted out. The kids were all writing silently. Derek was walking around with a clipboard in hand, jotting down nonsense. The kids thought he was making notes for their participation grades. Mostly, he was doodling. He loved teaching. 

Across the hall, he heard a door slam. The sound of it reverberated into his classroom. Then, the voice of a student, grumbling and muttering curses.  

Derek sighed and went to his door. The student in the hallway was in his fifth hour, a tall young man who was still growing into the length of his limbs.  

"Malik," Derek said. "What's up?" 

The boy froze before turning to face him. "Hey coach." 

Derek motioned for the boy to cross the hall toward him. "What's going on?" 

Malik bristled immediately. "This new teacher is doing too much, coach." 

"How so?" 

"He kicked me out over a chair." Malik had a look on his face like he fully expected Coach Morgan, a jury of his peers, and God himself to come down on his side of this case. "Like, a chair." 

"What's the story with the chair?" Derek glanced quickly back into his classroom and the few heads that had popped up from their work quickly refocused on the task at hand. 

Malik spun the story with all of the indignancy a thirteen-year-old could muster. "I was just chilling with Louis, you know. Minding our business. And this dude keeps getting in our faces about not doing his stupid assignment, and then he told me to change seats, but, like, everyone else was talking too, so I don't see why  _I_  had to move. Total favoritism." 

"First of all," Derek lowered his voice, forcing Malik to come a little closer to hear him. "He isn't 'this dude,' he's Dr. Reid. Second of all, were you and Louis talking?" 

"Well, yeah, but -- " 

"But nothing. If you were talking, you were in the wrong." 

"But so was literally everyone else!" 

Derek suppressed smile. He put on his best Coach Morgan face of stern authority. "It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing. I expect you to do the right thing, even if everyone else is doing wrong. You get me? It's called integrity." 

Malik nodded meekly. "Yeah, okay Coach." 

"When Dr. Reid is ready to speak with you again, you're going to apologize. Then what are you going to do?" 

"My work?" 

"Yes, your work, in whatever seat he assigns you. He could tell you to go sit in a parking space with your work, and you'll do it. Got it?" 

Another heavy sigh from Malik. "Yeah, coach, got it." 

"Thank you." Derek reentered his own classroom, and the whispering of his students dried up immediately.  

When the final bell rang that day, the halls were immediately filled with the sounds and bodies of hundreds of tweens, the clang of lockers, the thud of feet on the stairs. Derek stood in his doorway, barking out warnings against running and horseplay in his best Coach Morgan voice. Across the hall, Dr. Reid was putting some desks back in order from where students seemed to have rearranged them.  

The hall emptied quickly, students filing out to their buses and parents' cars or to after school activities. Derek watched as Spencer slumped into his desk chair and rested his cheek against the cold metal of the desktop. His face was turned toward Derek, full of exhaustion and defeat, but his eyes were closed so he didn't see Derek cross the empty hallway and enter his open classroom door. 

"You okay, kid?" Derek asked. 

Spencer jumped. God, he was easier to spook than a student hiding their cell phone. He lifted his head from the desk sheepishly and ran a hand through his hair. "This is a lot harder than they made it seem in my training." 

Derek laughed. "No shit, Sherlock." 

"I mean it. This job is fucking difficult." 

Derek had yet to hear the newbie swear, and it jarred the flow of the kid's conversation so much that Derek dropped the joking attitude immediately. He cast himself into one of the student's desks, studying Spencer's face. "Yeah, it is. It's a really hard job, and year one is the worst. And you don't really have training, no offense to your program." 

"It was an eight week intensive--" 

"Come on, genius," Derek cut in. "You've got like seventeen degrees. Would an eight week intensive training program be able to replace everything you learned for one of them?" 

"I have four degrees," Spencer pouted. 

Derek watched him and waited. 

Spencer huffed. "Fine, no, it wouldn't be able to." 

"Exactly. And your eight week intensive Teach for America recruitment seminar doesn't teach you everything a bachelor's degree would, and certainly not as much as a masters." 

"Do you have a master's degree?" 

Derek nodded. He didn't know why he even brought up his advanced degree. He didn't usually. People didn't expect the football coach to have a master's in curriculum design, but for some reason Derek wanted Spencer to know that about him. 

"God, maybe I should get my next degree in Education." 

"If you plan to keep teaching, it might not be a bad idea." 

Spencer got up from his seat, movements jerky and irritated. He started wiping clean the white board. "I don't know. I didn't plan to when I signed up for the program. I thought it would be a good experience, maybe help me prepare for the day when I'm a professor, and I'd get a free degree out of it. But during the training, they made it sound so amazing I thought maybe I'd stick with it. Now, though..." 

Derek laughed, holding up a hand. "Slow your roll, kid. It's Wednesday of week two. You've got plenty of time to decide if you like teaching. You're locked in for two years with the program, right?" 

"Right, unless I decide I no longer want to be a part of the program." 

Derek thought about yesterday, when he'd seen this newbie laughing with Kamryn, an eighth-grade girl with purple box braids who gave trouble to most of her teachers but for some reason seemed to like Dr. Reid. "You don't strike me as the type to give up like that." 

Derek was beginning to revise his estimate of how quickly Spencer would be drummed out. Did he think Spencer was about to stay forever? No way. But maybe he'd last through January. 

Spencer smiled softly, sadly, something happening behind his eyes that Derek couldn't pin down. "Thanks for that." 

"Listen, what's the issue?" 

Spencer shook his head. "I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong." 

"No, fuck that," Derek said. "What are the  _students_  doing?" 

Spencer laughed humorlessly. "Not their work, that's for sure." 

"Ok, they're not doing their assignments. What else?" 

"They're out of their seats. Talking constantly. Swearing. Sneaking onto their phones. Cheating on some of the assignments they  _are_ turning in. They're just a mess." 

Derek pointed to Spencer's desk chair. "Ok, teacher, become student. Take some notes." 

With an eagerness Derek hadn't expected, Spencer seated himself at his desk and pulled out some paper. Derek got started, pulling out every classroom management technique he had learned in his seven years. Spencer's pen flew across the page. 

*** 

"How's the boy wonder?" Penelope perched her hip on Derek's desk the next morning before students arrived.  

"Baby girl, what are you talking about?" 

She jerked her thumb toward the door and Spencer's classroom beyond it. "The new kid." 

"What about him?" 

She rolled her eyes. "Come on. You were here how late yesterday giving him a little bonus lesson on how to teach?" She wiggled her eyebrows. "What else are you teaching him, stud?" 

"You know I've only got eyes for you, sweetheart." 

Penelope shoved at his shoulder gently. "Obviously, but I'm way out of your league. So are you settling for boy genius over there? Spill." 

"Nothing like that," Derek said, shaking his head. "He's struggling with classroom management." 

"Aren't we all?" 

"At least we've had actual teacher training. That program threw him to the wolves. I'm just trying to make sure he has a fighting chance." 

"You didn't do that for whatsherface over there last year." 

Derek shrugged. "The kid's got potential." 

"Ah," Penelope nodded seriously. "This must be a new definition of the word potential that means 'a cute behind.'" 

"I mean it. I hate it when we end up with long term subs in our hallway." 

"That's the only reason? Because you don't want a long term sub?" 

Derek gave her a wolfish expression. "I'm only a dog for you, baby." 

From the hallway, they heard a clatter and bang. Sticking his head out the door, Derek saw Spencer fumbling to pick up his classroom keys from where they'd apparently been dropped somehow both against a locker and on the ground.

"Good morning," Derek said with a laugh. 

Spencer grumbled aimlessly, scooping up his keys and trying again to unlock his classroom door. "This must be the only school in existence without a coffee maker somewhere in it for the teachers to use." 

Derek turned his gaze to Penelope. Spencer was right, this building didn't have a communal coffee maker, although with some of the habits at the teacher's lounge sink, that might not be a bad thing. That's why he and Penelope had gone halfsies on a Keurig for her room. It was their secret, or they'd be overrun with decaffeinated coworkers and then what would the point even be.  

Penelope gave him a look that telegraphed "are you serious?" so strongly he basically heard her voice. 

He shrugged at her. 

She sighed. 

Spencer watched the entire one act play with a look of befuddlement on that cute little face. 

"Fine," Penelope grumbled. "Follow me, newbie." 

Look of confusion growing, Spencer followed her toward her own classroom. Derek brought up the rear, and damn, Penelope was right. New kid had an ass under those frumpy professorial clothes.  

Penelope closed the door behind the group, glancing around to make sure they wouldn't be spotted as she walked to her cabinet. She unlocked the solid wood door and swung it open slowly. 

Most of the teachers in the school had cabinets full up with paper, pencils, craft supplies, sharpies, work books, and anything else The Teacher's Store sold. Penelope's cabinet was different. 

There was a small bar-height table that held the Keurig as if on a pedestal. Underneath was a minifridge for creamer and snacks. There was a shelf above it that Derek had installed for her (without the knowledge of the maintenance department) and it housed a few mugs and the sugar. On the underside of the shelf was a drawer on runners, full of k-cup pods. 

Spencer stared at the set up. "You have a secret coffee station." 

Penelope shrugged. "Yeah, well, my classroom is paperless, so." 

Derek smiled at the look of wonder that was slowly waxing over Spencer's face. He grabbed three mugs from the shelf and started rooting around for his favorite kind of k-cup. 

"Is there, like, a fund for me to pay into for this?" Spencer asked, watching. 

"Twenty bucks a month," Penelope said quickly. Derek thwapped her shoulder gently. "Ow!" 

"Ignore that," Derek said. "We just keep it stocked up. So, you know, if you see the pods on sale or something..." 

Spencer nodded. "I will keep us so stocked. I swear, you will never run out of creamer again." 

Derek laughed, grabbing a spoon from the basket on the shelf.  

"Seriously, you two just saved my life." 

Penelope fluttered her eyelashes in Derek's direction. "I hear that's what Derek is good at." 

"I'm outta here," Derek said, taking his own mug of coffee and letting the other two fend for themselves. Penelope's laughter followed him all the way back to his classroom. 

*** 

On October first, Spencer beat everyone else in their hallway to school in the morning. When Derek rounded the corner from the stairwell, he found Spencer outside of his own door, working hard at something. As he got closer, he saw that Spencer was using a variety of tapes, mounting putty, and even a hot glue gun to decorate the outside of his door. There were pumpkins, ghosts, a little graveyard in the corner, a vampire, and in the center a big plastic skeleton. 

"Wow." Derek said. 

Spencer smiled at him and pushed his glasses back up his nose. "Morning." 

"You, uh. Like Halloween, huh?" 

"It's only the best holiday." 

Derek laughed, watching the way Spencer pushed his hand through his hair to get it out of his eyes. "I'm not really a fan." 

"Well, you're nuts," Spencer said, turning back to his masterpiece. 

"Is your whole classroom like this?" 

Spencer pointed to a few canvas shopping bags resting against the wall nearby. "Not yet. I figure this will take my prep hour today and maybe some time after school, too." 

"That is..." Derek shook his head. "Wow, kid. Wow." 

"You're not going to put anything up?" 

"I don't really do holiday decorations in my room. I dunno, it's a lot of work for something that's just going to come down a few weeks later." 

Spencer shrugged. "I read a study over the weekend that decorations in the classroom have a proven benefit if they increase students' comfort level in your classroom." 

Derek nodded. "That makes sense. Still a lot of work. I'll leave you to it." 

A few minutes later, he was at Penelope's coffee machine, making two mugs.  

"Twice as tired?" She asked, eyebrows wiggling. "Was someone up too late last night?" 

Derek laughed. "No, did you see the kid over there with his Halloween stuff?" 

She laughed. "Yeah. Newbies. They have so much energy." 

"Yeah, well, I figured he wasn't about to stop for a cup of coffee." 

Penelope cackled with glee. "Boy, are you making him a coffee?" 

"Yeah," Derek shrugged, pouring plenty of sugar into Spencer's cup. 

"You've got it so bad." 

"I do not!"  

Penelope twirled over to her desk, starting to set up for the day, and began to sing a spontaneous song. "My dark chocolate miracle man wants himself a taste of that vanilla." 

"You're the worst," Derek said, carrying both mugs back into the hallway. 

Spencer had moved inside his room at this point and was hanging a bunch of rubber bats on a string above his whiteboard.  

"Here you go," Derek said, slipping the mug onto the only clean corner of Spencer's disaster area of a desk. 

Spencer looked over and when he saw Derek's offering his face lit up with an almost child-like glee. "Derek! Thank you!" 

Oh god. Derek could feel his heart rate kicking it up a notch. An answering grin was spreading over his face and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "Yeah, no problem." 

"Seriously, you're the best." Spencer finished that string of bats and hopped down off of the chair he'd been standing on, crossing to take his first sip of coffee. "Oh, man, you made it perfect. Seriously, thank you." 

"Don't mention it," Derek mumbled, already backing toward the door. "Seriously. Have a good day." 

He was out in the hall before Spencer could respond. 

*** 

Derek was trying his best to be subtle. He really was. The last thing he needed was some thirteen-year-old suddenly realizing that their social studies teacher had a fondness for their science teacher's booty. Seriously. So he refrained from staring as much as possible. He tried not to flirt. He kept it in his pants, both literally and figuratively. There was no need to make a fool of himself. 

Besides, he actually liked this kid as a friend and coworker, now that the school year had settled into a rhythm. He wouldn't say that the kid had the best classroom management, but no first year teacher did. Still, they were better for him than they were for some of the veteran teachers who couldn't keep up with the times and just yelled when a kid did something they didn't like. 

They appreciated Spencer's energy. Derek wasn't sure when the kid had time for a real life, because he was constantly coming in to school with bright new ideas for his desk arrangement or a new way to more efficiently collect homework or keep track of misbehavior. He had systems for nearly everything at this point, and introducing him to Pinterest and Teachers Pay Teachers may have been a grave mistake. 

The problem was that Derek really  _liked_ the guy. So much so that he didn't want to make their work relationship weird by asking him out. As Penelope once said, Derek Morgan didn't  _do_ relationships, so, you know, it was safer to keep his adventures to people he wouldn't need to interact with in the future. 

Still, it was hard to resist. Derek saw his students bumble their way through flirtation and wondered what it would be like to hold hands with Spencer in the hallway. 

God, that was awful. Why was he so awful all of a sudden? 

"Mr. Morgan," a student busted through his train of thought, dashing up to him in the hallway. "I totally forgot about your project!" 

Derek fought the urge to laugh because she looked so serious. Her braids were swinging around her face with the residual energy of her dash up the stairs. "Yeah, I noticed that when I put the grades in over the weekend." 

"Can I turn this in to you?" 

She had a piece of paper in her hands. Derek was confused. His project involved making a book of information about the amendments of the U.S. constitution. There should have been at least 27 pages there, one for each of the amendments. He took the piece of paper from her. It was the rubric he'd given them last month that explained all of the requirements of the project and exactly how he'd be grading them. She'd filled in random numbers in the score column and totaled it at the bottom. She had given herself an A. 

Derek flipped it over, examined the empty back of the page like he'd somehow find her project there, and flipped the page over again. "Makayla, what is this?" 

"It's my project." 

Derek blinked at her for a moment. 

"I mean, my project is still at home, I forgot it, but I know you knock down points for every day it's late and this is what I deserve based on the rubric, so I thought maybe--" 

Derek laughed and handed back the paper. "Girl, bye." 

"Mr. Morgan!" 

"Bring me your project tomorrow," Derek said. "Have a good evening!"  

With a huff, she slung her backpack over her shoulder again and followed the crowd down the stairs and towards the buses. 

Spencer came to stand next to him. "So it's not just me?" 

"What isn't?" Derek asked, putting a little more space between them than the kid had left. God, his eyes were such a pretty honey color. 

"The ridiculous things they tend to ask for." 

Derek laughed. "No. They will try everything, and I mean everything. I once had a student send me an email half an hour before the grading window closed on report cards asking me to bump her up to an A because she needed the GPA boost. She told me she'd bring her missing work on Monday. She had a D." 

Spencer laughed and Derek really liked that sound. It didn't happen enough.  "Man. I couldn't imagine trying stuff like that with my teachers." 

"I can," Derek said. "I don't have to imagine, actually. I tried it." 

Spencer shook his head. "You were that kind of kid, huh?" 

"Not all of us can be super geniuses." 

Spencer rolled his eyes, watching the last of the students file down the staircases. Will, head of security and holder of the biggest crush ever on Ms. Jareau, was talking into his walkie talkie, confirming cleared hallways all over the building.  

"Penelope told me you have an I.Q. of 187," Derek mentioned casually. 

"How did she find that out?" 

Derek did a double take. "Wait, that's accurate?" 

Spencer shrugged. "I mean, I.Q. tests are inherently flawed and an inaccurate gauge of an individual's intelligence. The number is really not much of an indicator of anything other than how well someone can take a test. But yes, that's my score. Again, how did she know?" 

Derek mimed typing on a keyboard. "She knows things." 

"Ah." Spencer laughed again. "Um, the two of you... some of the students have said... you know, that you're..." 

"Dating? No, we're not. She's my girl, my ride or die, like a sister to me. We flirt and we tease, sure, but we wouldn't, you know." 

"Oh." Spencer's voice seemed to have risen a full octave. "Okay. I was just wondering. I figured it was probably frowned on to date coworkers." 

Derek shrugged. "I don't know about all that. Two of the sixth grade teachers married each other over the summer, and now she's pregnant with his baby." 

"Wow." 

"Yeah." Derek laughed. "It's a regular telenovela around here." 

That made Spencer laugh again. He headed for his classroom, raising his tone so he would be heard across the hall by Derek. "Anyway, I gotta rush to a doctor's appointment. Have a good weekend." 

"Everything ok?" Derek called back, tilting his weight against Spencer's door frame.  

"Oh, yeah," Spencer snatched up his satchel that he carted to and from school every day. "Just routine stuff." 

"Okay. Have a good weekend." Derek tilted himself enough to let Spencer through the door, although he still felt the moment Spencer brushed past him on the way out. 

"Bye!" Spencer waved to him as he headed for the faculty parking lot. 


	2. Chapter 2

It started near the end of October. That was a little later than some years, and Derek had been expecting something like it for almost a week when it happened. It was one of the things that made their hallway the bomb, but Derek never wanted to start it himself.

It started on a Tuesday. Derek was running a little late, and by the time he pulled into the faculty parking lot, he could see the first of the school buses rounding the corner for the main lot. He rushed out of his car and in through the back door, up a flight of stairs and down the hall to his classroom, pausing only to toss his lunch in Penelope's minifridge on the way. Checking his watch, he knew he had less than five minutes before students started showing up at his door, so he started flying through his morning checklist. Smartboard warming up, computer turned on, agenda and learning target written on the board, calendar set to today's date, materials for the day set out where students could grab them on the way in. He was grateful for how much prep he had done the afternoon before. He barely had time to toss a few sharpened pencils in the communal cup, forget about making a cup of coffee. 

Derek was just barely standing in his door when the first of his first hour students began to trickle in. He greeted them at the door, shaking hands, giving fist bumps, pointing out the paper they needed to grab on their way to their seats, and calling as many of them by name as he could. Last week at lunch, Spencer had mentioned an article he'd read that many students go an entire day without an adult speaking their name once they age out of elementary school. Derek hadn't said anything at the time, but he'd been trying to call more of them by name since then.

He watched as his students filed in, grabbed their papers, and pulled out their do now sheets, which he collected weekly. He watched as about 75% of them got started right away on the do now displayed on the smartboard. God, this was a good year. He'd told himself he was going to get it together, and look what was happening.

Then Bishop zipped into the classroom, yanked the pencil right out of Iyanna's hand and launched it across the room at Darrius.

Here we go.

It wasn't until the hour was half gone that Derek caught his breath enough to consider sitting down and taking attendance. He wiggled his computer mouse to wake it up and dropped into his desk chair.

Only to be greeted by the wail of an airhorn.

"God--" Derek cut himself off, jumping out of the chair. Fix it, Jesus. "Bless America!"

The students were howling with laughter, falling all over themselves while they pointed at Derek's face. He knelt down next to his chair, where he immediately saw the air horn duct taped to support pole in the middle of the chair. Attached to it was a post-it note on which someone had drawn a heart and the initials E.P.

"Prentiss," Derek grumbled.

The kids began to howl anew. "Ms. Prentiss?" Some of them screeched. 

The commotion brought Will from security to his door, glancing around with concern. "You okay, coach?" He asked.

Derek huffed out a breath, yanking the airhorn from its position under his chair. "Tell Prentiss I'm coming for her."

Will laughed and saluted, walkie talkie in hand, and was off. A minute later he heard Emily yell out her open door. "Bring it on, Morgan!"

This year's prank wars had begun.

***

By mid-November, most of the classics had been performed by someone or other. Generally, it was only their hallway that participated in this. The other teachers took themselves too seriously or seemed nervous that it would distract from their authority in the classroom. Derek knew different. His first hour had bonded with him over the airhorn, and with making faces of mock outrage at Ms. Prentiss whenever they saw her.

Still, he had already seen the petroleum jelly in a water bottle, the cling wrapped desk drawers, the regular light bulbs swapped out for black lights.

He was eating lunch in Gideon's room with Penelope and Spencer, plotting his revenge on Alvez in the gym when Spencer said it.

"I don't really get it," Spencer said, munching on something in a takeout container that he'd brought from home.

"There's something you don't get, 187?" Penelope asked.

He shook his head at her. "This prank thing. I've never really understood it. They just seem mean."

"It's all in good fun," Gideon said. "It's a way of community building. You may have noticed that the teachers in this hallway have a pretty strong sense of community."

"I wondered if you guys were atypical for the teaching community."

"We're atypical all right," Penelope said around a mouthful of croissant. 

Gideon smirked in her direction. "Yes, you are. But it's a good community builder as long as you follow some ground rules."

Spencer seemed to perk up at the mention of rules. What a nerd.

Derek began counting them off on his fingers. "One, only prank the willing. This means no sour patch kids that can't handle a joke. Two, do no harm. Your joke can't hurt anyone, even collaterally. And three, no expense for the victim. That means your joke can't cost the person you're pulling it on any money or excessive time to fix. If it's going to, then you, as the prankster, have to pay it."

"There was an incident," Gideon said by way of explanation. 

Penelope shuddered. "Tore down two entire bulletin boards and thought that was funny. I'd spent hours on them, hours!"

"Who did that?" Spencer went pale.

"Anderson from the front office," Derek said. "That's when we instituted the unofficial fourth rule. Our hallway only. The rest of the building just doesn't get it."

"That rule is unofficial," Penelope explained. "Because there are some exceptions. But exceptions have to prove themselves first."

"Wow." Spencer leaned back in his chair, thoughtful.

Derek pointed his yogurt-covered spoon in Spencer's direction. "We'll need to watch out for this one, I can tell. He wants to get one of those PhDs in engineering."

"I have never pranked anyone in my life," Spencer said.

"Don't let your guard down," Derek warned the rest of the room.

He was right.

It started with his cell phone. Derek didn't like to use it when he was teaching, and it could often be found sitting on his desk, charging away while he worked. Derek saw no one. His students saw no one (or if they did, they weren't saying anything). But during second hour, he picked his phone up off his desk, unlocked it, and found it covered in symbols he didn't understand.

"What?" he whispered to himself. He scrolled through a few screens, but they were all the same. If he had to guess, he'd say the language was something like Cantonese or Mandarin. Korean, maybe?

"Who?" He glanced around his classroom. The students were all working on powerpoint presentations they had to give next week, each of them with a laptop on their desks in front of them. They were talking to their neighbors, laughing, and he could tell that some of them definitely weren't on powerpoint, but none of them were paying him any attention. If one of them had done this, he'd expect to see them looking at him, gauging his reaction.

"Did anyone see anybody touch my phone?" he asked, trying and failing to navigate his way through the settings menu.

Students shook their heads, a few of them pausing to glance around just like he had. Derek looked for a note, like the one Emily had left on the airhorn. Usually whomever had pranked him would at least leave a note, but there was nothing to be found.

He pocketed his phone and went to see Emily on his prep hour. She had it fixed in two minutes flat. She also informed him that it was Mandarin.

The next day, someone had put something slippery and viscous on his classroom phone, something that made it slip out of his hand every time he had to make a call. The week after that, he came in on Monday morning and his stapler, three hole punch, and mug of pens were all suspended in red Jell-O, wobbling away on his desk.

That was where his prankster messed up, though. Derek knew that no one was this good, and he'd catch whomever it was at some point. This was it, because the culprit hadn't anticipated that Derek would be coming in early to run copies. So early that there was only one other person in their hallway. 

Derek peered out of his doorway and into the open doorway across the hall. Spencer peered back like a deer in headlights.

"Watch out, pretty boy. Watch out."

God, that kid was pretty when he blushed.

***

Derek's first attack was simple. He stayed late on a Friday. Derek had noticed that Spencer seemed to have somewhere to rush every other Friday afternoon. Derek waited for Spencer to wave goodbye to him, then he went to work. When he was finished, he'd gone through more post-it notes than he cared to count, but they were everywhere. They covered the smartboard, Spencer's computer, every student's desk, and the desk chair. On the white board, he'd used post-its to spell his message: Don't mess with the best! – DFM

On Monday morning, Spencer and Derek had a shouted conversation across the empty hallway. "What does the F stand for?"

"Franklin!"

"That's a weird middle name!"

"Tell that to my mama's face!"

"You see if I don't!"

That day, during the morning announcements, Derek was congratulated for breaking the world record for number of unpaid parking tickets in one year. The next day, Derek cut a post-it down to just the right size to cover the sensor on the bottom of Spencer's computer mouse, and relished in the frustrated noises coming from Spencer when he couldn't get his computer to work right.

Then Spencer got the students involved. Derek was in the middle of class when Kamryn came in.

"Mr. Morgan?" she said, interrupting him mid-sentence.

Derek sighed. "Yes, Kamryn?"

"Dr. Reid wants to know if you're religious."

"What?" Derek was immediately on guard.

"Are you religious? 'Cause you're the answer to Ms. Garcia's prayers."

Derek couldn't help but dissolve into laughter. Kamryn waved at a friend in class, then headed back to Dr. Reid's room.

"Ms. Garcia's your girlfriend, right?" One of the students asked.

Derek rolled his eyes, still getting himself under control. "She wishes."

Once the students got involved, all bets were off. Two days later, Derek pulled aside a few of his football players and recruited them for his plan. He wrote them passes to get out of last hour early and gave them a talking to regarding stealthiness. He armed them in secret just before the last bell rang and sent them on their way.

The bell rang. A student ran into Spencer's classroom. "Dr. Reid, I need your help!"

"What?" Derek watched the immediate and intense focus that came into Spencer's eyes in response to the almost panicked tone. Man, Derek had picked a kid that could act. Good job, kid.

"In the parking lot!" The kid took off for the main parking with Spencer just behind. Derek followed at a small distance, hoping not to attract attention.

The bait student ran out of the building and hoisted two thumbs up into the air. Spencer followed after him, and three of Derek's football players let loose with water guns on him. It was November and cold, and the sound Spencer made was better than Derek could have anticipated. 

Spencer whipped around at the sound of Derek's laughter.

"You!" he screamed.

Derek waved to his students. "Thanks guys! Keep the water guns!" Then Derek hightailed it back toward his classroom, Spencer following on his heels.

"I can't believe you! It's freezing outside!"

"Hey!" Derek called over his shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time. "You play the game, you run the risk!"

Students and teachers alike stared at them as they barreled down the hallway. Derek tried to close his door between them but Spencer was too quick, and Derek realized he'd trapped himself in his own classroom with a wet, angry Spencer. Half of that equation didn't exactly sound terrible, but Spencer was spitting like a half-drowned cat, which greatly reduced the sexiness. 

"Whoa, whoa," Derek held his palms up. "Pump the brakes. Are you actually mad? Did I take it too far?"

Spencer was gasping for breath, holding his button up away from his body like it would hurt him. He leaned against a desk and dripped onto the tile floor. "Know this, Morgan. My revenge will be swift and righteous."

Derek laughed. "Bring it on, Pretty boy."

Spencer spun on his heel, stomping back to his room. "Stop calling me that!"

***

Derek waited all week. With each passing day, his anticipation and nerves seemed to ratchet up a little higher. This was torture, waiting for whatever Spencer was planning. He'd seen other teachers "just stopping by to visit" the kid on their prep hours all week, and it was making him extremely anxious.

"Just remember the rules," Derek said at lunch one day.

"Don't worry," Spencer said with so much nonchalance that Derek was pretty sure the temperature dropped a few degrees in the room. "I'm excellent with rules."

"Bet you are, kid." Derek said with a wink. Anything to throw Spencer off his game. This had to be serious.

Every morning, Derek opened his closed classroom door with an exaggerated slowness, waiting for something to fall or jump or strike him. Waiting to see all of his furniture nailed to the ceiling. Waiting for the entire room to be full of balloons. Anything!

But it didn't start like that. It started one day in the middle of first hour.

Derek was teaching. They were talking about the War of 1812, and suddenly his entire class barked like dogs.

Derek cut himself off. "What?"

They class said nothing. In fact, they were looking at him like he was the crazy one.

"Wow. Okay." Derek took a deep breath. "Like I was saying, the Erie Canal, uh--"

They barked again.

"Okay guys, what the hell?" Derek asked.

There was some giggling now, but no one was giving the game away.

"The Erie Canal. War of 1812. What was I saying? Right, um--"

Bark!

Derek's eyes narrowed. "Uh."

Bark!

Now Derek laughed. "Ok, clever. You bark every time I use a filler, like uh or um?"

Two barks, and many heads nodded.

"Cute," Derek said, already plotting revenge.

But it turned out that the prank wasn't over. Each hour, one after the next, made a series of animal noises, and each trigger word was different. It took him almost the entire length of second hour to realize they were oinking on the word "the". His day was filled with moos, meows, and bird whistles. Several other teachers, who Derek realized must have been involved in order to coordinate so many students each with different commands based on what hour they had him, stopped by on their prep hours to give Derek a thumbs up through the doorway. 

It was really difficult not to flip them the bird in front of his students. 

"Boy," Derek said after school, poking his head into Spencer's door. The kid had been mysteriously missing during their shared prep hour.

"Hello, Derek," Spencer said brightly. "Have a good day?"

"Okay," Derek said. "I admit it. That was good."

"I'm so glad," Spencer said. "If only I were done."

"What?" 

Spencer shrugged one shoulder and smiled coyly under his eyelashes. Little tease. "Nothing."

"Boy--"

"Just remember this, the next time you decide to engage in a prank war with a Caltech grad."

Derek huffed.

***

He found the rest of the prank when he went out to his car. There was his pick-up truck, glossy black and well cared for. The cab had been wrapped in a thick layer of plastic cling wrap.

"Spencer!" Derek shouted to the sky.

"Yeah?" 

Derek jumped. He hadn't realized the kid had followed him out to the parking lot. What was he, some kind of stealth nerd? A geeky ninja?

Spencer was smiling at him from behind his browline glasses. "I wasn't sure if this one was technically legal. There were no guidelines for what constituted excessive amounts of time to fix the prank, so I figured I'd help you cut yourself free."

"How kind of you," Derek deadpanned, setting down his computer bag.

"Or," Spencer said, voice going a little softer. "I could drive you home and I'll cut you out of there tomorrow on my prep."

Alone time with Spencer in his car? Derek suppressed a grin. "Yeah, ok. That means you're picking me up in the morning, too, right?"

"That only seems logical."

"Then we'll both cut me free on our preps tomorrow."

Spencer waved him over to a beaten up white sedan with visible rust and dents along the bumpers.

"Whoa. No wonder you need Teach for America to pay for your next degree."

Spencer rolled his eyes and unlocked the doors.

"This thing is street legal, right?"

"Of course it is, will you get inside?"

Derek did what he was told. They hadn't even left the parking lot before Spencer changed his offer. 

"I'm hungry. You wanna come over for some dinner? The slow cooker's been going all day."

Derek shrugged. "Sure, sounds good."

The car coughed as Spencer steered it onto the road. Derek only clutched at the edges of his seat a little.

Spencer's apartment was tiny but immaculately organized. It was a bachelor apartment. Derek didn't know that people even lived in apartments so tiny that they didn't have a bedroom. But there was Spencer's bed, covered by a green quilt, tucked in the corner with a nightstand.

The place was also, like, 85% bookshelves. That didn't surprise Derek in the least.

"So, slow cooker, huh?" Derek asked, setting his computer bag down by the door. 

"Uh huh." Spencer moved to the kitchen immediately. Well,  _kitchen_  was a bit of an overstatement. There was a tiny square of counter space between a sink and fridge, with a stove on the other side. There were maybe five cabinets total. Spencer had a bar height kitchen table with two chairs, and that was where the slow cooker was plugged in.

"I've thought about getting one of those."

"My mom gave me one when I went to college," Spencer said. "They come in handy."

He opened the lid and the scent of something delicious came wafting out. 

"What is that?"

"Chicken and dumpling stew. They're not really dumplings, though, they're just biscuit dough from a can cooked in the stew."

"That smells awesome."

Spencer blushed a little again. "I'll get bowls."

"Thanks for feeding me," Derek said, perching on one of the bar stools and leaning in to get a better smell of this magic deliciousness. He'd understood the appeal of a slow cooker in the abstract, coming home to a fully cooked meal and all that, but no one told him it could perform this kind of wizardry.

"I guess it's my way of saying please don't get me back even worse."

Derek laughed. "No, you win. I concede. We should definitely get together to prank other people, though."

Spencer smiled, coming back with bowls, spoons, and a ladle and beginning to serve up the food. "Yeah, we could do that."

They spent a while eating and planning, and then Derek suggested they log in to his Netflix account and watch something. He was maybe hoping for a little Netflix and chill, but Spencer was oblivious.

Then again, maybe not. After the movie, Spencer yawned and stretched and wow, flexible. "I guess I should drive you home now..."

Derek shrugged, honestly a little distracted by the way Spencer's shirt was exposing a little pale strip of tummy.

"Or..." Spencer said, looking away to avoid eye contact. Derek wondered, not for the first time, if Spencer was really this shy, or if it was part of some sexy little act. "I mean, I've got a couch. And I'm driving you to work in the morning."

"I've got a spare change of clothes in my classroom," Derek shrugged, trying too hard for casual.

"You do?" That surprised Spencer enough to make eye contact again.

"After the first time a kid ruined my shirt, yeah, I keep a spare just in case."

"How did they...?"

Derek mimed throwing up and Spencer shuddered. "Turned out he had the flu, but his mom hadn't believed him and made him come to school."

"Ouch."

"Tell me about it. My classroom smelled for days."

"On that cheerful note," Spencer said. "You wanna sleep on my couch tonight?"

"It would be an honor, pretty boy."

Spencer stood, going to a closet to pull out a blanket and spare pillow. "I don't even know why you call me that," he grumbled.

Maybe Derek was relaxed by the homecooked meal, or by the two hours he'd just spent with Spencer's heat deliciously close to him on the couch, but for whatever reason, he found himself responding with surprising honesty. "You really don't know?"

"No, of course not."

Derek shrugged. "Because you're pretty."

"You – that isn't," Spencer was stuttering. Why was everything he did so cute? Derek was so far gone it wasn't even funny anymore. "That's, like, empirically false. I'm not pretty, I'm weird looking."

"I mean, yeah, you're totally weird looking," Derek nodded. "But in a pretty way."

Spencer launched the pillow at him from across the room. Across the apartment, really. "You're so weird!"

Derek shrugged. "I'm pretty sure you dig weird."

Now it was Spencer's turn to tilt his head consideringly. "Yeah, I do."

"Why did you invite me to dinner tonight?" Derek flipped the pillow over in his hands again and again.

"Because Penelope told me that you've never focused on one person during a prank war like this, and that when you combine that behavior with the way you stare at my ass, she's pretty sure it's your way of pulling my pigtails like a grade school kid."

"I'm gonna kill her."

"Not so fast." Spencer sat back on the couch, not as close as before but still within arm's reach. "I mean, not unless she was totally off."

Derek considered the hazel of Spencer's eyes, and the way his too-long hair fell into his eyes. He considered the way Spencer was starting to light up in front of his students, and the way they were lighting up in return. "No, she wasn't totally off."

Spencer was kissing him so fast Derek was almost knocked off the couch. One moment he had a pillow in his lap, the next moment the pillow was on the floor and he had a lapful of awkward, lanky Spencer Reid. There were long arms around Derek's neck and he found his own hands already settled on Spencer's waist.

Spencer kissed like he did everything else, a little nervous at first, but enthusiastic and confident once he'd gotten a feel for the terrain. Derek ran a hand up his back and the noise Spencer made, low and intense, was breathtaking.

When Spencer pulled back to catch his breath, Derek took advantage of the space to press kisses along Spencer's jaw and neck. He tugged impatiently at Spencer's tie, needing more skin to taste.

That's when Spencer's hand came to rest on Derek's chest, pushing back just a little. "Wait," he panted. "Derek, wait."

The way he said  _Derek_ , breathless and blissful and beyond the space of his normal self-control, made Derek want to flip them on the couch and  _take_ , but he forced himself to sit back into the couch cushions instead. "I promise I'll still respect you in the morning," Derek smirked.

"I know you would," Spencer assured. "But that isn't why I'm stopping you."

"Ah." Derek nodded. "You like things slow, huh?"

Spencer nodded. His face was flushed pink and for once Derek was pretty sure only half of that color was embarrassment. He wished he could see how far down his neck and chest that pretty color extended. "Sorry if that's... disappointing."

"No, Spencer," Derek smiled at him. "I want you feeling it, baby, and if you need a little time, then you need a little time."

"Oh my god," Spencer swung off of his lap, tugging his shirt back into place. "This boost to your ego is making me regret everything."

Derek laughed. "Don't be like that, baby."

"Quit calling me baby!" Spencer retreated to his bed and opened up a dresser drawer. "I can give you a t-shirt to sleep in, but I don't have any bottoms that will fit you."

"I can handle that," Derek said. Spencer threw an oversized t-shirt at Derek, and Derek quickly stripped off his work polo and pulled the t-shirt on instead. When the fabric had cleared past his head, he caught the way Spencer was staring at his torso. "Like what you see, Pretty boy?"

"Um!" Spencer grabbed a set of pajamas and rushed into the bathroom as fast as possible. Derek laughed, stripping down to his boxers and setting up the couch with the blanket and pillow.

When Spencer emerged from his bathroom, Derek was surprised but at the same time not surprised at all to see Spencer in a full-on pajama set, bottoms and a matching button up top, his feet bare where they peeked out from the pants. 

_H_ _e_ _is_ _so freaking cute_ , Derek thought to himself.

"I am not, jeez."

"Oh. Shit," Derek laughed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I must be more tired than I thought. You are cute, though, so suck it up and deal."

Spencer laughed. "Whatever. I left a new toothbrush out for you on the sink."

"Thanks, man."

They stood awkwardly for a moment, staring each other down across the tiny apartment. "Goodnight," Spencer finally said, practically leaping into his bed.

"Night, Pretty boy."

Spencer was already pretty well burrowed into his bedding, but Derek as willing to bet real money that he saw him smile.

Not as much as he'd be smiling the next day, though, when they coordinated their attack, running down their hallway and releasing a wind-up mouse under every classroom door as they went. Morgan covered the east side of the hallway and Spencer covered the west.

Yeah, this was Derek Morgan's year all right.


End file.
